August 2008
no, not for the car battery, but to plug in to the cigar lighter and charge 2 or 4 AA cells.
Does anyone know of such a thing.
I'd try googling, but thanks to a burning lorry on the M62 I've spent 4 hours to travel 70 miles and my brain is a bit fried at the moment ;-) Read more
Recently my nearside near wheel nearly came off - lost one nut altogether, another one sheared off and I lost control at 50mph - very scary - all this just 3 weeks after a garage had changed all my tyres They claim the time period is too long for it to be their responsibility. I can't find any other explanation. I'm at the point of going to arbitration to get the cost of the repair work back. Does anyone have experience of these matters? Will I end up with a big bill?
~Bilboboots Read more
>>Is there some inherent design fault with all wheels and nuts?
Yes.
In that case I thank my lucky stars and I'm grateful for small mercies or whatever. In 50 years of motoring I've never yet had a wheel nut come loose.
My Iraqi buddy whose car has been trashed needs, of course, another.
He told me yesterday he had seen a Passat 1.8 auto with 110,000 miles on it for sale outside someone's house. I am not sure what S reg means in terms of age though. If it is pre-1998 the asking price of £2,400 sounds a bit steep to me. My friend says he believes the seller to be an honest private owner and that the car is a 1.8T. That engine is certainly very nice in another friend's Skoda, but with an autobox may turn out a bit thirsty for suburban running about. And assuming it has been properly serviced - something I urged my friend to look into very thoroughly - how long would such an engine and its turbo last?
I urged him to take his time and told him I would seek advice, but that the car sounded a little dear to me, and may have expensive work coming up. Was I being unduly pessimistic? Read more
Thanks chaps. I have passed on the not-too-good news. I am trying to steer my friend gently towards the idea of hiring the auction buyer who has been so highly spoken of here. Although if not rushed I can assess a motor fairly well for true condition, I am hopelessly naive and impulsive myself when it comes to buying and selling, and anyway I have no time at the moment.
I would guess that scrap values have gone up this year.
Which affects people like me at MOT-time, looking to put a 1995 Micra, 130k through the MOT. The car already has a dodgy CV joint, a front spring needs replacing, it has severely scratched windscreen (I bought a wiper blade from the pound shop -- doh!), needs new HT leads and probably a new battery for the winter. And is cosmetically bad, with scratched bodywork and front bumper repaired with insulation tape. And that's before the MOT test. It runs OK, though.
Should/when it fails its MOT. Any ideas for scrap values in the North of England?
Thanks
Mike Read more
Yours must be better than the MOT failure that made £155. I'm not sure you'd pay a premium for buying from a dealer when it has only 1 month MOT and it's on eBay with no reserve.
If you can afford to trade up a tiny bit, then it will be money well spent. Recent changes in scrap values have meant that complete wrecks now cost more than they used to; and with "desireable" teenagers' cars they're holding their value even better.
Does anyone know the best way to remove old window tint film,
I pulled off the big bits but there are chunks all over the window and stuck like pink fluffy dice to a blanket.
Will a heat gun and knife blade work.??? Read more
I use this tinyurl.com/6louba and very carefully near the window rubbers!
Looks like Ford have made the same mistake as Renault did with the Clio Williams in the 1990s.
news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080804/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_for...s
Still $12,000,000 ain't bad if they win.. Read more
60 000 x 100 = 6 000 000. 6 000 000 x 2 = 12 000 000. Double damages for intentional deception as a punishment.
Hi,
My first post on the forum, so please be gentle with me...
I bought a new Skoda Fabia 1.4 TDi estate for the charity I work for recently for use as a pool car. It was supposed to have air con fitted free of charge.
I took delivery on 10 July, but I didn't notice the A/c button was missing. I gave the car a quick checkover, signed the paperwork and drove off. The car has been in constant use by various drivers since then, it wasn't until yesterday that someone came and asked why the air con wasn't fitted. As the fleet manager, I was a bit embarrassed.
I called Skoda Customer services who looked up the order, which I placed in May. It originally included the aircon free of charge, but someone has then asked for it to be removed.
I have spoken briefly to the dealership to let them know, the guy who sold me the car is not around till later today so I've not had a chance to get things sorted.
I'm looking for advice as to what the best remedy would be. Retro-fitting the air-con at Skoda's expense? Rejecting the car? Cash compensation and leaving the car as it is or getting the car replaced with an air-con model. I guess me not noticing the air-con was missing has made things a bit trickier.
Thanks in advance for any advice or tips.
Oz Read more
I agree that if a dealer includes an item of specification in the contract of sale and then the dealer does not supply then the matter should be pursued. These old threads do pop back into contention again occasionally and I fail to notice they are not current. I wanted the thread placed under the comment that I was agreeing to, sometimes the site does that but this time it was bunged at the end out of context. Sorry for the confusion.
Help! The nearside rear wheel almost fell off my micra after one nut worked loose and another sheared. This was 3 weeks after all four tyres were replaced by a garage. I do low milage but the garage claims it is 'impossible' that it had anything to do with them! They said it could not take so long. I know nothing about cars - could it take that long? Could one have come loose and fallen off early on without me noticing? Any good technical advice would be really appreciated.
~Bilboboots
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ok ok this is weird i have had the same problem my front wheel one nut has sheered but the other three never came loose , the holes might not have been properly threaded as this happened after my 1st tyre change, i have a nissan micra 54 reg they might be the same batch?
2004 54 Nissan Primera estate SE 2.2 TD, 97k £2,500. Nice condition, save for an ugly stone-dint on the bonnet.
Even I'm getting an itchy wallet with prices this low. That car has lost some 90% of its original list price in 45 months. That's almost £500 per month. A nearly-new car for beer money.
And it apparently runs on SVO...
Glass's gives
Part-exchange Price:
Excellent condition: £3000
Average condition: £2680
Below average condition: £2360
Downsides:
It does only seem to have been serviced every 15-18k, against recommended 12k - and HJ's recommendation of twice that frequent.
It's also obvious that it will only be worth £1,000 in 12 months' time.
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Fortunately it has now been sold to somebody else.
Equally, it wasn't a TD at all, it was a Di; so no thanks. Glass's is wrong on this too.
Thing is, DavidHM, I already have a neglected car; the aircon hasn't been worked for 3 years; the cambelt is 27k and 5 years overdue (40k and 4 years is the recommendation); and it needs a major service, plus it misfires slightly (as it has done for 30k miles and 4 years) and no amount of "servicing" will cure it. I cannot face paying the best part of £500 servicing, and I'm beginning to feel dodgy about the cambelt.
(Your mate is surely a fool not to change the oil.)
In the Ford Focus owner's manual it says after 10 years the orange coolant should be replaced provided the concentration is kept correct (50:50).
Does this mean that the corrosion inhibitors in the coolant will still provide adequate protection until 10 years is up or if not would the damage from the corrosion in the cooling system that they talk about be expensive to fix ?
Thanks Jon.
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Modern Vauxhalls use the same orange stuff. Queried with my local dealer at the annual service two weeks ago for 5½ year old Corsa what "for the life of the vehicle" meant in relation to coolant. Seems they expect water pump / a pipe / radiator to have failed by now giving rise to coolant renewal! They half heartedly drained out two litres & stuck in two litres of fresh neat antifreeze (with fortunately no air locks) so I guess I've got a super stength brew in there now.
Browse
Yes indeed dc, I'd make sure any charger I buy these days is voltage and temperature sensing rather than a straightforward timer. I think the one I linked to above is a proper one, although the details are a bit vague on the mymemory and play.com websites.